


Peter Nureyev and The Aspect Prism

by InterstellarVagabond



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: AU, F/F, F/M, Juno Steel - Freeform, M/M, Penumbra Podcast, TPP, Written for a Request, ben lives au but also juno dies au, jupeter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 07:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15636384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarVagabond/pseuds/InterstellarVagabond
Summary: Juno likes to keep an eye on the ancient Martian relics that pop up now and then, they're too dangerous to just let be. Occasionally he takes his... associate, Peter Nureyev along for backup. On one such occasion the pair finds an artifact that can see into it's holder's mind and grant a wish from what it has divined there. This is how Juno "Self Care Who" Steel accidentally wishes himself out of existence. When Nureyev gets left behind in a world without Steel, he takes it upon himself to navigate this changed world, find the relic, and bring back the lady he loves. Written for a request made on tumblr.





	Peter Nureyev and The Aspect Prism

**Author's Note:**

> I just sat down and wrote until I was done and then I was so tired and excited to publish I didn't proofread a damn thing so here's hoping I'm perfect.

_It started and ended in less than a second._

_For me anyway. By the look on Nureyev’s face he’d had a much longer night than I had, and once again it was all my fault. Ironically, this kind of self-loathing, holding myself responsible, or maybe just punishing mindset is what caused it._

_Cause, see, I might have accidentally messed with another Martian artifact that had no business rooting around in my head._

_Nureyev and I have kinda made a habit of keeping that sort of thing off the streets, which… sounds pretty weird when you realize we’re talking about ancient artifacts and not super heroin, but take it from me and my boatload of personal experience-these relics can be dangerous._

_Since it was Miasma who first started rooting around in forgotten tombs and dungeons dredging up all these forgotten weapons and machines, I felt a kind of… responsibility? To bring them all in. I mean, not like it was my fault the world’s most evil xenologist decided to go digging but since I was the one who got trapped in her slimy genetically spliced fingers I guess I was the next best thing to “responsible” for all that stuff._

_Someone had to get rid of it, or else you had situations like the one that started today where a couple of mobsters looking for a get-rich-quick kind of job pick a fight with you and your…._

_Associate._

_We were fine, of course, just a few bumps and scraps but the problem is we almost weren’t fine. Nureyev almost wasn’t fine, he was very close to being_ not _fine. So, when I picked up the artifact-a little plain looking cube that fit in the palm of my hand-I was thinking to myself that I get Nureyev into way more trouble than he could get himself into and that’s saying something since he’s a wanted criminal. I was thinking to myself that I do this to a lot of people, that maybe things would just be better off if I wasn’t around._

_…and that’s when it happened._

               

                Nureyev turned to check on Juno, and for a split second he could still see him there-brooding at that little box with his slouched posture and dark eyes oh so familiar and… admittedly attractive-and then he was gone.

And not just Juno. The unconscious goons that littered the floor of the shipping warehouse also seemed to vanish in an instant as if Nureyev had blinked his eyes and opened them in a new location.

“Juno?” Nureyev asked, not yet letting panic seep into his voice. This wasn’t the first time the detective had… ghosted on him. Which of course made Nureyev feel calmer and more agitated at the same time. Personal feelings aside, disappearing bodies was never good. Last time that had happened they’d had to save the world from a researcher.

“Juno, dear, this isn’t very funny,” Nureyev said, starting to walk down the aisles of the warehouse to check for signs of… well anyone.

When his search proved fruitless he drew one of the knives he kept on his person and twirled it in his fingers.

“Alright, I’ll play this game. What is it this time? Conspiracy? Crime syndicates? Dark Matters? Alien magic?” he said to the empty air of the warehouse, sounding as bored as possible. Then he made for the door. If there were no answers inside then he would have to find them somewhere else.

As he exited into the dome tinged sunlight, he listed off more possibilities in his head. Could he be missing time perhaps? Some sort of head trauma from the fight? He had been roughed up rather a bit more than usual back there. All for his lady who insisted he didn’t kill when they went out together. Nureyev was a master with knives and maybe more of a sub-master at fisticuffs. He was never less than that at anything.

He found the car right where he’d left it, thank god for small miracles. It was a rental, one of Peter’s insistences. He didn’t like driving around in Juno’s clunker that couldn’t pass for a getaway car at a hover go-cart track, and he also didn’t like permanent license plates.

“So, Juno didn’t take the car home…” Nureyev said to himself thoughtfully.

Here he was presented with a choice: stay and see if the lady eventually shows up, or take the car back to the apartment and see if Juno was there.

Given the vanishing bodies, Nureyev was fairly sure the first option wouldn’t yield much, so he opted for the second.

“You better be just around the corner, walking home because we had some little tiff,” Nureyev said to himself as he started the car. “Just a concussion and an angry detective with his feathers ruffled. That’s all this is.”

 

Juno was not in fact just around the corner, or the corner after that. Nureyev made the drive back without a single sign of Juno. If that wasn’t enough to set a pit of worry growing in his stomach, the trouble with his key at the apartment door certainly was.

Nureyev valued that key more than anything else. It was the only non-cloned key he really used. Every other door was just a challenge meant for the right equipment, but the door to Juno’s apartment was an open invitation. A show of trust.

So, when Nureyev’s key didn’t fit with the lock, his brow furrowed with confusion and shock.

“Long night catching up with you?” a voice from behind him said. “I’d like a glass of whatever has you this confused. I don’t think you even live in this building, buddy.”

Nureyev turned around and felt two emotions one right after the other. The first was relief, because it looked like Juno was here after all. The second was confusion, because despite every sign pointing towards this person being Juno… somehow Nureyev knew that they were not.

“Juno?” he found himself asking anyway, and that seemed to be the wrong question because the man’s face twisted into shock and pain.

“H-how do you know that name?” he asked. “God… are you with the news or something? This story’s been dead about a decade now, you’re a little late to rubberneck!”

“You’re not Juno… but you can’t be…” Nureyev looked the man up and down. His face was almost identical to Juno’s but without the scars. He had a thinner frame, and that weathered trench coat Nureyev was always begging to replace was absent as well. The man standing in front of Nureyev with a paper bag of groceries in hand could only be… a dead man. According to Nureyev’s research and Juno’s nightmares that woke him up crying and apologizing in the middle of the night and every other source of information you could find on _Benzaiten Steel_.

“Ben?” Nureyev asked.

“You sure don’t talk much, huh?” Ben huffed. “Got anything to say to me besides names? Or are you just here to harass me about my dead sibling?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Nureyev almost choked on the words. “You… Juno is… dead?”

“Has been for a long time now, but thanks for bringing it up,” Ben said. “You gonna move and let me into my apartment now or what?”

“No, that’s impossible but… how are you alive and how is Juno…” Nureyev didn’t finish the question. He was in shock and Ben was getting impatient. This wasn’t working, he wouldn’t get any answers having an emotional breakdown in front of a traumatized sibling. So, Nureyev did what he did best.

He put on a mask.

“I’m so sorry,” he smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess you’re right it has been… quite a night. I’m a little confused… I hope I didn’t upset you.”

Ben’s face softened a bit, though his eyes remained wary. “Yeah… uh, look can I help you out or something? Call you a cab?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Nureyev said. “I’ll find my way home. So sorry for bothering you, again truly sorry.”

Nureyev slipped past Ben, feigning the walk of a hungover walk of shamer just trying to forget this was happening, and Ben watched him as he made his way to the stairs.

“You sure?” he asked. “Hyperion City is dangerous, it’s not good to go walking alone when you’re uh… under the influence of anything really. Or sober. Or just sitting in your own house sober. This is a terrible city no one should live here.”

“Oh, I can take care of myself,” Nureyev grinned his dangerous grin, sharp incisors exposed. It was a practiced gesture, one he usually took pleasure in performing. Not this time though.

“Alright, well… good luck!” Ben gave Nureyev a wave, clearly glad to be rid of the rambling drunk he’d found at his door. Nureyev was less glad, and his head was spinning with what he had just learned.

_Ben, alive. Juno… dead._

“Alien magic then. Or could still be a concussion. Maybe I’ll wake up in a hospital bed with Juno right there scowling down at me…” Nureyev said to himself, nervously wringing his hands. He stopped the tic as soon as he realized he was doing it. He had to stay composed, wear the mask. He was acting like a goddamn amateur. He would figure this out, they always did he and… Juno.

                The next stop was the nearest public library. Nureyev needed somewhere with a computer, and he couldn’t waste time breaking into a building with a better setup than the shared desktops of the library. Not that it mattered, even the most ancient of computer could be transformed into an intelligence gathering machine with just one of the flashdrives found in Nureyev’s pockets. A little gift from one of his powerful friends that bypassed every firewall he might come across and even boosted the processing speed as a nice little bonus.

Most of the documents he needed were public record anyway: news articles, blog posts, etc. Some of it was police record but he didn’t even really need the flashdrive to hack into the HCPD. Honestly, they were practically giving their information away. Usually to the highest bidder.

The search barely took ten minutes, and most of that was because Nureyev kept double checking because he couldn’t believe what he was reading.

**Sarah Steel Charged with Murder of Child: Juno Steel**

“Right…” Nureyev exhaled slowly, tried to steady his heart rate. Juno was dead, killed by his mother at the exact time and place Nureyev knew Benzaiten Steel to have been killed. Give or take a few minutes, he wasn’t really focused on the details at the moment.

**A recent graduate of the Hyperion Police Academy, Juno Steel was found dead today, the apparent victim of his mother. Reports from the victim’s brother and eye-witness, Benzaiten, claim that Juno arrived at his mother’s house to find her threatening him with a gun. The situation appeared to have been defused, before Sarah turned her gun on Juno and shot him several times. Sarah Steel is in custody, awaiting trial.**

Nureyev closed out the browser and retrieved his flashdrive. He leaned back in the rickety library chair and took several deep slow breaths with his eyes closed as he tried to recount every relevant detail to his situation.

                He offered to help Juno with a case, they left to go find the Martian artifact, there was a fight, and then when he turned to talk to Juno…

There it was. A split second of memory. Juno standing there seconds before he evaporated into thin air, holding the small blue cube they had just retrieved. If a Martian pill could give the detective the power to read minds and some strands of Martian DNA could turn Miasma into a monster, then who knows what it is that cube could… and had done?

                He knew what he needed now. He needed that cube, and he needed information from the underground to find it. If he got that cube back, he got Juno back. That’s just how it had to be.

 

                Juno might have been gone, but Nureyev’s friends were not. His network of allies and informants appeared to be entirely intact with the exception of one Valles Vickey who was currently hospitalized following an attack from a former lover. An attack, Nureyev remembers, Juno was supposed to have thwarted.

                So, Nureyev picked a name and made a call, and soon he was talking to someone who knew how to get just about everything.

“Whaddya want with some old Martian junk?” Dee asked, and Nureyev could just picture them reclined on some lounge furniture waving about a cigarette and gesturing for their butler to pour them another drink. “Billy, baby, you come to me for the good stuff. I can do better than this. You can do better than this. What are you wasting my time for?”

“Darling, I promise you it’s a very lucrative venture. You know what they say about books and covers?” Nureyev said in the voice of William “Billy” Charbonneau.

“Well this ain’t a book, it’s a damn box,” Dee said, pausing to cough. No doubt they had forgotten to exhale smoke before talking, as they often did when Nureyev called with a bizarre request. “I’m looking at it right now, and it’s a box. Boring as hell, don’t know why Dark Matters would want a thing like that.”

“Dark Matters, you say?” Nureyev asked.

“Yeah, stashed away in one of their juicy little contraband vaults, the location and keys to which can be yours for the low low price of a favor next time I ask,” Dee practically purred.

“That’s awfully generous of you,” Nureyev said, and normally he would be worried at the prospect of a ‘favor’ as payment, but seeing as he didn’t intend to stick around this reality any longer than necessary… “I’ll take the offer, dear.”

“Wonderful!” Nureyev could hear Dee pressing buttons on their comms at high speed, and soon his own comms beeped at an incoming message. “I’ll be in touch, Billy, enjoy your box,” Dee said before promptly hanging up.

                “Well, no time for small talk as usual, eh, Dee?” Nureyev chuckled. Getting himself involved in a job felt good, it helped distract him from all the other horrible and strange things going on. He liked being in the action. He liked a good heist, and seeing as it was Dark Matters well… this would certainly be one hell of a heist.

                Nureyev made a few stops, just the essentials. A suit, a pair of dark shades, and some fake identification. Rex Glass was going to make a surprise return to Dark Matters, a recently freed prisoner of some sinister rival agency. He’d wiped Rex from the computers following the incident with the mask, but it was simple enough to replace the false files back from where they had come. It was risky, reusing a name, but any fallout would be some other reality’s problem. Besides, he didn’t have time to rearrange another Dark Matters introduction.

                As he changed in a gas station bathroom, transforming himself into Rex Glass, Nureyev remembered how he’d put this identity to work stealing more than just a mask. It was the one that had first allowed him to steal the heart of Juno Steel. His lips tugged their way into a small smile despite himself as he relived the memory. Juno backed up against his desk, lips parting for Rex’s tongue. Juno’s heartbeat picking up and his eyes fluttering closed, Rex’s smile pressed against Juno’s lips, and all the while Nureyev’s hand was in Juno’s pocket securing the safe key. Then Juno had really impressed him and handcuffed him where he stood. How could he not fall in love with someone so clever, so quick, so morally outraged, so deeply hurt and yet refusing to give in.

                Nureyev’s smile faded. If he didn’t pull this off… if he ended up another casualty of the Dark Matters security team… Juno would never come back. It was up to him to make sure Mars’s favorite detective still existed tomorrow. It was up to him… to bring back the sullen lady he loved.

 

                Luckily, Mars liked to keep things close to home, so the lockup full of Martian tech was stationed on the planet they’d found it on. Not too long a drive from the city, actually. Nureyev made it there by sunset, and with a flash of Rex Glass’s badge hopefully this would all be quick and easy.

                Unfortunately, nothing with Dark Matters is ever quick or easy.

“ID?” the guard asked, looking at Nureyev like he was… well, a thief.

“Of course! Here you are my good man!” Rex Glass smiled and handed over his information, ready to let the system do its work. The guard barely even looked at the name before he was calling for reinforcements to push Nureyev to the ground and cuff him.

“Take him to the detention cell on floor sixteen,” one of the guards said, pushing Nureyev towards a pair of brutes armed to the teeth. “This is the one Wire’s been looking for.”

“So nice to be popular,” Nureyev sighed as he was dragged inside. Well, Mag always did say an impatient thief is a dead thief, and here was the proof. He really should have retired Rex, and not just because it got tiring being so excited and sexually charged all the time.

 

                His cell was about as nice as you’d expect, barren and metallic with a bed built into the wall and minimal dripping coming from the ceiling. It was nice of Dark Matters to keep the rat population down at least.

Nureyev bemoaned his confiscated lockpicks and skeleton keycards… or at least the ones the guards had been able to find on him. The ones he’d kept would just simply be of no use to him if he broke out without a plan first.

                There were fix or six guards posted around the detention level, one that made rounds by his cell on the regular. He was about ten floors up from the vault, and the badges that would activate the elevators and doors down there had been taken from him during his arrest. This wasn’t the most challenging bind he’d found himself in… but it also wasn’t the simplest.

                Footsteps pulled him out of his thoughts, it was two sets this time so that meant the usual guard had a guest this round. Peter peered out through the bars and was surprised to see a familiar face.

                “Oh, do go on, Aurelia,” drawled a short woman, hanging off the guard’s rather muscled arm. If her “flirtatious” voice hadn’t been familiar, or her face so clearly known, Nureyev would have recognized her by the liberties she had taken with the Dark Matters uniform: ribbons here, sequins there, etc.

“Rita!” Nureyev said, a smile coming to his face. Rita jumped, first out of shock and then into what Nureyev assumed was a defensive pose.

                “Wha? Who are you? How do you know my name? Are you a spy? Well, guess what buddy, I’m a spy too so don’t even try it! Plus I have this super gorgeous hunky guard with me who wouldn’t let nothing happen to me!” Rita said, karate chopping the air occasionally.

                “Don’t worry, honey, he can’t hurt you,” the guard, Aurelia, said. “Guy’s behind bars, and for good.”

“But he knew my name!” Rita said, scrunching up her face and peering into the cell. “Who are you?”

                “Well, it’s sort of a long story,” Nureyev said, clutching at the bars and leaning in with a welcoming smile on his face. “I suppose it would be best likened to… oh what am I saying, maybe you wouldn’t know it…”

                “I know a lot of things!” Rita insisted.

                “Well… have you ever seen that stream… _Of Two Worlds About You_?” Nureyev asked.

Rita gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. She had no way of knowing that was just the stream she’d brought over to Juno’s apartment a week ago for movie night, the one Nureyev had patiently attempted to watch as Juno and Rita argued about the plot and threw popcorn at each other.

“No way, you mean you’re like Mark Blanchett? The poor man lost between two realities trying to find his true love again, having to choose between saving the world or saving his friends and everything that matters most to him??” Rita cried out.

                “Yes, that’s pretty much it,” Nureyev feigned a pained sigh, leaning against the bars. “And it is that journey that has brought me here to this cell.”

“Rita, you really shouldn’t be talking to this guy,” Aurelia said. “C’mon, my break’s in a few minutes, Reggie will be here to relieve me any second. Let’s hit the mess hall.”

“Oh… but I wanna hear his story…” Rita whimpered. “You just go on ahead without me and I’ll catch up!”

“I really can’t let you talk to him…” Aurelia said, but Rita cut her off quickly.

                “It’s okay, cause I outrank you! If you get in trouble I’ll say I bossed you right on out of here!” Rita said.  “So go on! I’ll be okay! If he tries anything I’ll show him how Dark Matters treats creeps who pick on nice ladies.”

                Aurelia looked nervous but eventually she sighed and shrugged before waving goodbye to Rita and moving on with her patrol.

“Dating beneath your rank, my Rita, how scandalous,” Nureyev said once they were alone.

                “Oh, we’re not dating really,” Rita blushed. “I’ve got a lotta people I spend time with… I mean not like I’m being a heartbreaker or nothing! Just seeing my options! Just some adults having fun together you know what I’m saying? You gonna tell me about your weird reality thingie or what?”

“Well, you see, there’s a Martian artifact down here that put me in this reality here, and I’m trying to get back to the one I belong in, because someone very dear to me… doesn’t exist here,” Nureyev explained.

                “It is just like the stream!” Rita said. “Oh, that’s so sad and romantic… wait, how do I know this is all for real? You could just be taking advantage of my love of art!”

                Nureyev doubted that movie could even really be considered art, but he didn’t say anything about it. “Ah, of course, proof. I can do that. I know you in the other reality, Rita. So I know that your favorite food is all of them except for celery because it’s just crunchy water, and I know you blog in your spare time about hobbies you’ve picked up, and I know your best friend is named Frannie, and your mother has been warning you about the fluoride in the water for years now but you’re still not sure if that’s a real thing or not.”

                Rita gasped again and Nureyev thanked his lucky stars that the woman was such a talker, willing to share personal details, and apparently still the same old Rita in this reality even if she was a high ranking Dark Matters hacker now.

It made sense that she would be here. If she wasn’t working for Juno she would no doubt have ended up recruited by some shadowy agency. Her hacking skills were unmatched, so Nureyev always wondered why she stuck around to work for a failing detective agency instead of bidding herself off to some high paying job. It had to just be Juno, he figured. Try as he might to push people away, he had a way of drawing them in.

                “Okay, I believe you now,” Rita said. “And I’m gonna help you.”

                “I would appreciate that so much.” Nureyev almost cried grateful tears.

                Rita pulled out her comms and tapped a few buttons. The cell door opened and Nureyev stepped out into freedom.

“I set all the cameras on a loop so it’ll look like you and I are just chatting here,” Rita said. “When we’re done I can use your face and scenes from movies to make it look like you broke out all on your own, lone wolf style!”

“You really are quite skilled, you know, you should quit working for Juno and come work for me,” Nureyev said, it was the sort of joke he usually made with Rita and it slipped out without him thinking.

“For whonow?”

“Oh, ah… sorry, let’s just get to the artifact.”

                No one spared him or Rita a second glance, aside from a few of the romantic partners Rita had mentioned who would wave, wink, or blow a kiss at the giggling secretary turned spy. Aside from them though, no one bothered to notice them making their way down to the vault.

As they descended, there was a roar and thud that shook the elevator and made the power flicker. Nureyev looked to Rita who waved it off.

                “That’s one of the Martian thingies downstairs. Don’t worry, she’s all locked up tight, she’s not getting out of there.”

Nureyev could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and goosebumps forming on his skin as he asked Rita for clarification as to who she was talking about.

                “The lady we found all this stuff with, though… she’s not really much of a lady anymore,” Rita said, shaking her head.

                Before he could ask further questions, the elevator door slid open and Nureyev ended up following Rita into the vault.

The majority of the security had been in getting down here, the room itself was largely unguarded. It was unheard of for anyone to get past the floors above or through the thick walls of the vault, so there was no need to dress it up as anything but what it was: a large storage room.

Rita led Nureyev along a catwalk, checking her comms and humming to herself. “You said it was some kinda cube? I don’t see any cubes here in the list…”

“It’s here, I know it,” Nureyev said. “My informants are seldom wrong.”

“YOU!”

Nureyev jumped back, hand going for a concealed knife he no longer had, as a huge hand slammed against the glass wall to his left. Without noticing, he had started walking alongside an enormous cell containing a creature that looked…

Well, it just looked wrong. Looking at it for too long made his head hurt. It kept changing and shifting, and in a way that made it very clear that this sort of creature was not supposed to do that.

“THIEF! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!” the creature roared, slamming against the glass once more. “I KILLED YOU! I KILLED YOU!”

“Oh man is she creepy,” Rita said in a quivering voice. “Let’s get away from her, huh?”

“Miasma?” Nureyev asked, eyeing up the creature. She had transformed similarly the last time he saw her but… not at this scale. Not this far gone from humanity.

“You… you… you’re dead, thief, you’re dead. Buried in the sands of the desert. The last loose end…” Miasma breathed like her lungs were giving out, and spoke in a rasping voice that chilled Nureyev to the bone. “Shot by my assistant the minute you handed over the egg… you’re dead, you can’t be here… you’re dead I KILLED YOU!”

Nureyev realized suddenly that he had been clutching at his arm with one hand and his mouth with the other, frozen in place. He couldn’t stop thinking about Juno, face covered in blood, and himself strapped to a chair as electricity played with his body like a dog with a chew toy. Now this, this proclamation of his death. He’d never questioned it before, the outcome of choosing to help Juno get the weapon. It had just been the right thing to do, no amount of money was worth handing over a weapon that powerful, but… this world’s Peter Nureyev hadn’t had Juno there as his handsome moral compass reminding him of a younger man who still believed in justice… a better Peter Nureyev who was more than just a thief.

He hadn’t thought about it, but it was the incident with the mask that changed it all, got him working for more than just survival again. Somewhere along the way he’d realized it was hard enough to stay alive, being a revolutionary would have to wait. Then he got good at what he did and being a revolutionary just… fell by the wayside. He was a thief, and a damn good one. He got to travel the stars and see all those beautiful worlds and live in relative luxury, what else could he need? Well, that question was answered the minute he saw Juno’s rage and pain at what happened to Cassandra Kanagawa. That was something he had forgotten: moral outrage.

This world’s Peter Nureyev had never remembered, and he’d died for it.

“Mistah Glass?” Rita brought him back to reality with a tug at his sleeve. “I think I found the cube. We should go get it.”

“Yes… yes you’re right, Rita.” Nureyev straightened himself out and turned away from Miasma. “Thank you, dear.”

“THIEF! COME BACK!” Miasma screeched as she clawed at the glass trying to get to Nureyev, who was trying his hardest not to look back at her or flinch each time her hands beat against her cage. “THIEF!”

“Should be on the bottom level,” Rita said, gesturing towards the stairs. Nureyev followed her down to the rows and rows of shelves below. “Things get less organized here, it’s all still being sorted out. We’ll have to check all of them.”

“Right, let’s split up then,” Nureyev said.

Rita went left and Nureyev went right, and for what felt like half an hour they worked their way through dozens of boxes and crates and burlap sacks filled with ancient Martian items. Some of them Nureyev remembered stealing, and others were new to him. He handled them all with care, wary of causing another catastrophe to solve.

The entire time Miasma kept beating on the glass, demanding to be set free, calling for Nureyev to let her out, threatening Rita. Occasionally her attacks on the cell would cause the power to flicker. Nureyev got so used to it that when the power didn’t come back, it took him awhile to realize.

“Rita?” he called out.

“Oh no, oh no, I think she fried the system or knocked a wire loose or something!” Rita said. “Um… I’m gonna call the guards okay? You can hide if you have to but we really can’t be down here with her if there’s no power, I mean she keeps hitting that glass even with the shockey thingies in place without them she might-”

                As if Rita had given her the idea, Miasma chose that moment to rear back and send a snakelike tendril that could have been a fist smashing against her cell. Nureyev couldn’t see in the darkness, but he heard the glass splinter more and more each time she beat against it.

                “You know I used to be thankful for the cracks in Dark Matters’ security,” Nureyev joked weakly right before Miasma cracked the glass and poured out of her cell like silly putty.

                The lights flickered a bit and then went dark again, and Nureyev heard the sound of the elevator. The guards must have found a way to restore power to it, because they were suddenly rushing into the room calling for Miasma to stand down and shooting at her to no avail. Nureyev knew how this went, she would just keep reforming and reforming and only one thing could stop her. A bomb that this reality’s Miasma no doubt set off on the surface, only to find it did nothing to those free of Martian DNA.

“Rita! We need to find the Egg of Purus!” Nureyev shouted over the sound of gunfire and shouting.

“But, what about your cube thingie?” Rita asked.

“We can find that later, I can’t very well go back to Juno if I’m dead,” Nureyev said, not adding that while he could easily find the cube and sneak away from this reality’s mess he did feel like enraging Miasma was somewhat his fault, and the idea of Rita being left down here with the monster would haunt him forever.

                “Right, I’ll start looking through the archives for this egg thingie!” Rita said. She sounded terrified. The fighting hadn’t reached them yet, but it was so loud you could barely tell where it was going on.

“Top level! All the way to the left, with the weapons!” Rita shouted. Nureyev felt around in the dark, wondering how he would find it like this, when a torrent of gunfire suddenly hit something that sparked and caught fire.

                “Watch it you idiot, hit the monster not the merchandise!” one of the guards shouted.

Nureyev quickly scoped out his path while the fire was still lit. He ran up the stairs, climbed over a guardrail when the next set of stairs was obliterated by one of Miasma’s tendrils, ducked and cartwheeled in a way that had been drilled into him from years of cat-burgling. Finally, he found the egg, a familiar shape amidst all the Martian odds and ends.

                “How do I set thing aga- oh come on,” Nureyev groaned. “’We place our hands upon our egg’ that’s right okay, very well then.”

                Clutching the egg, Nureyev turned back to where Miasma was fighting.

“I am going to have nightmares about this experience for weeks, and I’m a hardened criminal,” he groaned, rushing towards the mutant Martian monster.

                He managed to dodge the first two tendrils that came at him, but a third snaked up in the darkness and grabbed him around the ankle. It lifted him into the air, where he twisted trying to get the egg to make contact with Miasma’s skin.

                “Just a little… closer…” he grunted, squirming in Miasma’s grasp. He managed to brush the egg against her just barely, and he saw the timer activate. “Now we just have to wait as long as it takes to make one self-sacrificing stupid heroic choice,” Nureyev said, wishing Juno was there to hear him say it. As much as he wanted to make Juno’s eye roll, he wanted even more to have Juno’s eye in the fight. He’d started learning around the depth perception problem, and was quickly regaining his sharpshooter skills. He’d probably have Peter free in seconds if he were here.

                As it was, relatively unarmed and at risk of losing his glasses thanks to the power of gravity, Nureyev had to get free himself. So, holding the egg against his chest with one arm, he reached up with the other folding his body almost in half to grab at the tendril holding him and pull at it. It was like fighting with a steel cable, but eventually he got just enough give to slip his ankle free. Unfortunately, then he was falling. He reached out a hand and caught himself quite painfully on one of the guardrails, feeling his shoulder pop from the sudden stop.

                Gritting his teeth with pain, Nureyev threw the egg up onto the catwalk and then reached his free hand up to the guardrail. He pulled himself up, clumsily falling over the guardrail and hitting the ground with a wince. “There, egg set. I’m going home now. Where is that damn cube?”

                “THIEF!” Miasma roared. “I killed you already. You did this, you damaged it somehow you broke it. My egg, my clean world. I know it’s your fault, you brought me a dud YOU DID THIS.”

                Two more tendrils flew at Nureyev, cracking in the air like whips. One struck him in the legs and the other in the head, throwing him against the wall and making his ears ring. As he righted himself into a crouch, he could feel his nose dripping blood onto his face.

                Miasma struck again, but this time Nureyev heard her coming in time to jump out of the way. He stumbled into cover, holding his shoulder and trying not to think about how bad it was throbbing.

“Oh Miasma, I never bring my employers broken merchandise, I’m better than that,” Nureyev said. His eyes searched for the egg in the near dark. He could see it nearby, could barely make out the timer. “You’ll find that out soon enough I suppose.”

                Miasma roared in pain as the bomb went off, and the room went white with a flash of light. Nureyev wondered for a split second what Juno thought in this moment, when he thought he was going to die from this weapon. He also thought that the sound of Miasma being ripped to shreds was much worse on this side of the door.

                For a long time there was silence, and then finally there was the sound of the guards regrouping. Calling out for their coworkers and checking for signs of danger.  Nureyev didn’t like the idea of sticking around long enough for them to recognize him, so he limped back down to where his search had first been interrupted.

                “Come on… come on, I’ve been here long enough,” Nureyev muttered to himself as he pushed aside a good lot of Martian junk that wasn’t what he was looking for.

                “Mistah Glass?”

Nureyev turned around, and there was Rita holding a cloth bundle in her hand. She held it out to him. “I think this is it, Mistah Glass.”

                Nureyev took the bundle, checked the tag attached to it which read: The Aspect Prism. Then he unwrapped it, and was relieved to find that in the middle of the cloth was a small blue cube.

“Thank you, Rita,” he said with a weary smile. “Now I just have to figure out how it works. Fingers crossed, huh?”

“Just think of that person you gotta get back to!” Rita said. She paused for a moment as a guard called out to her.

                “Rita? Hey is that the prisoner? You! Stop right there!”

“They’re counting on you!” Rita continued. “I’ll hold off the guards, you figure it out! You gotta!”

She ran off, waving her arms and yelling to the guards about monsters and orders she had to give them all to clean up the mess. Peter remained where he was, holding the key to his homecoming that he didn’t know how to use.  He didn’t want to spend another day figuring this out, he wanted to go home. He wanted to lay down on the lumpy secondhand couch in Juno’s living room and complain about the pain in his shoulder until Juno came over to help. He wanted to grab Juno and pull him in for a kiss, call it medicine, demand more for his health’s sake. He wanted to watch Juno make that face he makes, like a smirk that means well. Watch him pretend to be annoyed and kiss him anyway.

He wanted to go home, and to him right now home was Juno.

Then there was a flash of blue light, and Nureyev was gone.

_Nureyev ran at me, smacked the cube out of my hand and told me to “put that damn thing down.” Then before I knew it he was kissing me, pulling me in close by my waist like he was drowning and I was the life preserver. You don’t get kissed like that every day. When he finally pulled away he was looking at me like he didn’t know if I was gonna stick around and… I guess I deserve that. I think he saw me frown because he put a hand on my cheek and told me to stop thinking so much and just take him home._

_He looked more battered than before, and when I asked him what happened he just gestured to the shattered bits of the cube he’d broken on the ground and gave me some line about it being a long story he rather tell me after a long nap. A nap sounded pretty good actually… I was ready to curl up with him with some bad stream playing for white noise. To just breathe in that cologne he says he wears just for me, and remind myself that he’s okay. He’s alright and he wants to be here with me. I can tell, from the way he looks at me. He loves me… and I’m pretty damn crazy about him too._


End file.
